Serving the classic snack combination of chips and salsa could result in you consuming almost twice as many calories as if you just ate chips.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US found that serving a salty snack with a dip caused people to eat 77 percent more calories.
Study author John Hayes, a professor of food science and director of Penn State’s Sensory Evaluation Center, hoped that by adding an extra item to a snack, participants would compensate by eating less of the main item.
But this was not the case.
In contrast, serving salty snacks like chips with salsa did not influence how many chips participants were willing to eat: They just ate the salsa as well.
Participants also ate at a faster pace and took larger bites than when they were served only chips.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US found that serving a salty snack with a dip caused people to consume 77 percent more calories.
Participants also ate at a faster pace and took larger bites than when they were served only chips.
In it studyIn a study published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, 46 adult participants visited the lab twice over a two-week period to eat the snacks.
On one visit, participants were served 70 grams of ranch-flavored potato chips (about three small bags) alone.
On another visit, they were served the same amount of fries with a third of a cup (79 ml) of ranch sauce.
They were allowed to eat as much as they wanted and researchers recorded and tracked the number of bites they took and how long they ate.
The scientists were then able to calculate the speed at which they ate and the size of the bites they took.
On average, participants consumed 345 calories of chips and salsa per eating session, compared to just 195 calories when they ate the chips alone.
“The most surprising findings from our study are that people did not eat fewer chips when salsa was available, but they ate the same amount of chips, plus salsa,” Professor Hayes said.
‘This lack of compensation means that adding sauce can substantially increase total energy intake without people realising.’
He added: “Our participants consumed the same amount of chips regardless of whether salsa was present, leading to a much higher energy intake when salsa was available.”
The study, which was led by research assistant Madeline Harper, suggested that the sauce encouraged people to eat more of the salty snack.
Ms Harper suggests the higher calorie intake may have been caused by people taking larger bites when eating the sauce rather than eating more quickly.
Professor Hayes added that understanding snacking behaviour is crucial to tackling the problems of overeating and obesity.
“This research opens new avenues to explore how the physical properties of foods can influence our eating behaviors and ultimately our energy intake,” she said.
“If we can get people to slow down, we can influence energy consumption without giving up the pleasure of food.”
The average woman needs to eat around 2,000 calories a day to maintain a healthy weight, while the figure is 2,500 for men, according to NHS guidelines.
Weight gain occurs when a person consumes more calories than they burn over time.
It is well proven that obesity increases the risk of serious health problems that can damage the heart, such as high blood pressure and cancer.
Experts have attributed the country’s steadily increasing waistline to the simultaneous rise in ultra-processed foods and modern, desk-bound sedentary lifestyles.
Today, two-thirds of adults are overweight, compared with just half in the mid-1990s. Of these, about a quarter are obese.
In terms of obesity, this equates to 16.8 million people, of whom an estimated 8 million are women, 7.4 million men, 760,000 boys and 590,000 girls.
In the UK alone, 26 per cent of adults in England are obese and another 38 per cent are overweight, according to government statistics.